Microsoft has decided to scale back Soapbox as it finds a better way to offer …

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Microsoft is finally admitting to itself that Soapbox, the relatively unknown YouTube competitor, is going nowhere. Soapbox is the user-generated video portal under the MSN Video roof. The software giant is looking at ways to put more focus on the product: figuring out a way to get only content for ads to be sold as strategically as possible. Erik Jorgensen, corporate vice president and chief media and technology officer of MSN, told CNET that a user-generated video player was expensive for Microsoft in today's economy:

We definitely look at it and say we want Soapbox to stand for something and add to our overall video strategy. We haven't decided whether you just continue to support it or whether it is too expensive and out of our focus to do.

The truth is that Soapbox never stood a chance. YouTube was always the place to go for user-generated videos, and while Soapbox did offer slight improvements in some areas, Google has been making sure to keep improving YouTube as well. With user-generated content, the winner is almost always the one with the largest userbase. YouTube has had the edge in that department long before Google bought it, and definitely before Soapbox came into the picture.

Even just by looking at its history and timing, Soapbox looked more of a vague attempt than a serious competitor. YouTube arrived on the scene in February 2005. Microsoft announced Soapbox in September 2006, and then Google purchased YouTube in October 2006. Soapbox only went public in February 2007, but a month later, Microsoft locked the service down for cleaning of copyrighted videos, finally reopening it in June 2007.

It is pleasing to see Microsoft making well-thought-out cutbacks like this one. The recession seems to be forcing Redmond to focus, something the software giant is often accused of not being very good at. Hopefully this trend of Microsoft directing its energies towards a smaller number of key products, instead of trying to move into all possible markets its competitors are in, will be one that stays with the company for a long time. Microsoft Money, Microsoft Encarta, and Windows Live OneCare are all going the way of the dodo on June 30, 2009.